International Study of Religion in Eastern and Central Europe Association
and
European Sociological Association Research Network 34 (Sociology of Religion)
in cooperation with
Department of Sociology, University of Zadar and Croatian Sociological Association
welcome you to the
12th ISORECEA conference & ESA RN34 mid-term conference
RELIGION AND NON-RELIGION IN CONTEMPORARY SOCIETIES
Theoretical, Empirical and Methodological Challenges for Research in Central and Eastern Europe and Beyond
Zadar, Croatia, April 21-23, 2016
Both religion and non-religion are subjected to remarkable changes in today’s world. Interplay between historical, cultural, and political occurrences and religion and non-religion challenge theoretical considerations of ongoing processes. Faced with different empirical data around the world secularisation theses have been contested for decades; theoretical debates about religious changes have occupied sociologists of religion. They have sought to better and more accurately understand and explain religious changes in different parts of the globe contemporary. Their points of view differ: privatization thesis, de-privatization thesis, religious economies thesis, religious bricolage, multiple secularities thesis. One angle, non-religion as religious counterpart, has been neglected in sociological research. Indeed, until the end of the 20th century, it was only Campbell (1971) who gave a comprehensive insight into the sociology of non-religion, while many scholars wrote and published within the strand of the sociology of religion.
Non-religion started to occupy attention of sociologists since the beginning of this century especially in UK and USA influenced by different appearances in Western world: the rise of declared non-religious people, the appearance of so-called a New atheism movement (inspired by books by R. Dawkins, S. Harris, D. Dennett, and C. Hitchens), numerous organizations and associations of non-religious people and their enhanced activities as an alternative to religious conservativism, growing influence of religion in public sphere and fundamentalist expressions of religion connected to terrorism. Researchers mostly based their work on theories of subcultural identities, identity politics and new social movements; yet, some authors also drew on the theory of religious economies. In spite of this strands, non-religion remains theoretically underdeveloped and under-researched. Interesting is the fact that this particularly refers to former communist countries where atheism was enforced as part of the official ideology; more research would have been expected on non-religiosity and atheism there. Independently of the exact geopolitical context, non-religion and in particular the interplay between religion and non-religion in different dimensions seem to be a key for understanding contemporary religious changes.
Scholars from various parts of the world will share their theoretical, empirical and methodological considerations on religion and non-religion and take part in discussion on different related topics, like:
- Social theory of religion and non-religion
- Comparative empirical data on religion and non-religion
- Methodological challenges of research on religion and non-religion
- Historical development of religion and non-religion
- Non/religious minority and majority
- Human rights, religion and non-religion
- Religion, non-religion and State
- Religion, non-religion and social inclusion/exclusion
- Religion and non-religion in the intersectional perspective (involving gender, age, socio-economic aspects, etc.)
- Religion and non-religion in everyday life
- Religious and non-religious activism
English 
Croatian